Disaster on the Coastliner

I have included this movie among my favorites purely due to its camp value. You can NOT go

wrong with three big hams, Doctor Brackett, Perry Mason and Captain James T. Kirk in the same

cast. DOTC is a late 70's disaster movie set on the fictitious Trans Allied Railroad Corporation

(Amtrak). The hook is two passenger trains, one carrying the Vice-President's wife or some

such, hurtling towards one another on the same track. Let's take a look at the cast:

The Stars of DOTC:

Lloyd Bridges as the Secret Service Agent who wears shades indoors
Raymond Burr as Perry Mason / The Railroad President
Robert Fuller (Doctor Brackett from Emergency!) as the philandering cad
E.G. Marshall as the incompetent chief dispatcher
William Shatner as Captain Kirk to the rescue!
Yvette Mimieux as Dr. Brackett's ex- who takes up with The Shat.
Paul L. Smith as the eeee-vil computer technician/locomotive engineer

SPOILER ALERT !!! Plot details follow:

I remember seeing this ABC movie-of-the-week when it first came out and noticed how the

consists changed equipment and length from moment to moment. Mostly, it was

F40PH locomotives pulling Amcans with an old baggage car appearing/disappearing in the

consist. Lots of fast runbys from crazy angles. It was fun. Occasionally, like in the above

title frame, an old EMD E-unit would be pulling a train.

The exteriors of the trains were filmed in Southern California and also along the old

New Haven Railroad in Connecticut (now part of Amtrak's Northeast Corridor).

You can read what IMDb has to say about this movie by CLICKING HERE.

The script conveniently overlooks emergency brakes found in every car and has you believe

there are no crossovers or switches of any kind for the 90 minutes the two trains are on the same

track.

But train geek nitpicking is not the only joy here. If you peruse the horrible script, you

find gems such as these:

Robert Fuller, trying to shed his "good guy" Doctor Brackett image, is shown smoking/drinking

and carrying on with some bimbo, while on the phone to his wife. Later we see him

clumsily attempting to pick up chicks in the train's club car.

Lloyd Bridges waltzing into the railroad's dispatch center and trying to run the show. He starts by

annoying everyone ("I count 9 people, not 10"), then generally losing his cool when things go

wrong, but not actually helping. It must have been this movie that landed him the role of Steve

E.G. Marshall who despite being chief dispatcher, has no clue how his railroad works. He just

keeps saying, "Everything is run by computer".

A sweaty Paul L. Smith sabotages all the dispatch center computer cards right in front of

everybody. Then he marches down to the station, overpowers the real engineer in the employee

break room and takes over. No one notices anything. Every time he's in front of the camera,

sinister organ music trills menacingly in the background.

Pat Hingle (the engineer on the other train) who obeys a strange voice on the radio, ignores his

own conductor, ignores his own dispatcher and then proceeds to blow through red signals for an

hour.

Track workers cutting in a crossover (with about a 30 degree angle) that will supposedly sustain

the train's 100mph speed. Just to make sure, they all lean on the outside rail with long crowbars.

"$100 says she'll hold!"

William Shatner (All Hail The Shat!), pottering around on the roof of a speeding locomotive with

Paul L. Smith (see photo below). That toupee is really getting a workout!

Conclusion: This movie is a classic, polyester image of the 1970's. Check it out!